


Our Last (First) Dance

by anextraordinarymuse (December_Daughter)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:11:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/December_Daughter/pseuds/anextraordinarymuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Steggytimes Day event on tumblr.</p><p>The future begins with friends, and laughter, and a first dance seventy years in the making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Last (First) Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from tumblr.

By some stroke of extreme luck, the world decides to behave for two seconds together. Tony is so stoked that he puts on a dinner - “Just a small one, Pep, I promise. Just the team.” - and everyone’s spirits are so high that no one argues. 

Well, no one except Natasha. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to have a party in a museum?” she asks as Clint hands her a beer. 

“Since when is Stark Tower a museum?” Bruce asks.

“Since Tony decided to start a fossil collection,” Nat answers dryly. 

Everyone laughs as they settle into the couches with their drinks, and Steve smiles but his eyes are trained on a figure across the room. Peggy is saying something to Pepper, and it must be something heartfelt because Pepper smiles beautifully and reaches over to squeeze Peggy’s arm. 

“What’s the joke?” Tony interrupts as he plops down onto the couch next to Bruce. “Pepper, come sit down.”

“No joke,” Sam replies.

Simultaneously, Nat says, “Just admiring your fossil collection.”

Peggy, who has followed Pepper over to the couches, laughs as she settles herself down next to Steve. She’s still adjusting to the new norms of this day and age so Steve doesn’t move to put his arm around her - her British reserve is still in tact, after all - but he has to restrain a grin when she scoots right up against his side, so that they’re in contact from the hip down. Steve knows that there’s a lot to adjust to, but Peggy is learning quickly. 

“As you should,” Peggy retorts with a cheeky grin. “It’s not everyone that could look as good at this age.”

The conversation devolves from there into a volley of good-natured jokes and laughter. Steve smiles along but doesn’t participate. He’s too busy soaking it all in: the joy of the moment, the happiness in his friends’ faces … and, most of all, Peggy’s presence. She is here beside him, a beautiful, breathing impossibility; somehow, his two lives have converged in the most important way. 

For once, Tony was true to his word. They are the only ones in the tower, and they pass hours in relaxed companionship. As the night ebbs on outside the wall of windows, their numbers dwindle: Bruce and Sam retire to bed; Nat throws her legs over Clint’s lap, leans back against the arm of the couch and closes her eyes to listen as Clint and Tony discuss some new type of arrow; Pepper falls asleep with her head on Tony’s shoulder. 

The lights are dim in the lounge, and New York City twinkles against the backdrop of night out the windows. Peggy is listening without adding to the conversation, so Steve takes the opportunity to grasp her hand warmly.

“Come on,” he whispers. 

Peggy raises an eyebrow in question but smiles and sets down her beer to stand and follow him to the window. 

She’s told him much about her life after he went down in the ice, so Steve experiences a moment of regret for the pain his next words will cause her. There’s no helping it, though.  
“Sorry,” he tells Peggy. Then, “Jarvis?”

Immediately the non-corporeal butler says, “How may I be of service, Captain Rogers?”

Peggy’s face falls and Steve squeezes her hand in support. 

“Would you start my playlist, please? Quietly,” Steve amends. “I’d hate to wake anyone.”

“Certainly,” Jarvis responds. 

Moments later the lounge fills with the soft strains of a Tony Bennet song that Peggy recognizes. The song is a remnant of a time well past, just as they are. Steve, still holding her hand in his, smiles softly.

“I might step on your toes, but I thought I might cash in that rain check, if you’re willing?”

The words bring stinging tears to Peggy’s eyes, but she smiles tremulously and steps into him. Steve presses his free hand against her back, his fingers splayed wide; he can’t resist turning his head toward her until his nose is pressed into the hair just above her ear. She smells wonderful. 

They sway slowly together, turning a careless circle as 1940′s jazz fills the warm air of the lounge. Steve closes his eyes and can almost trick himself into believing that no time has passed. 

The world has finally righted itself, Steve thinks. 

He has no idea how long they’ve been like that when he hears the smallest sniffle near his ear.

“Peggy?” 

She doesn’t answer, so Steve stops swaying and leans back far enough to get a look at her face. Sure enough, Peggy is crying silent, slow tears that fall unevenly from bright eyes. 

“Is my dancing that bad?” he teases.

Peggy huffs out a surprised laugh and tips her chin down. Steve keeps his hand on her back, but he uses his other one to angle her chin back up and reestablish eye contact. 

“It’s okay, Peg.”

“Seventy years,” she murmurs, and then purses her lips to contain the anguish that those words conjure. “We’ve lost so much …”

“We haven’t lost anything,” Steve interrupts earnestly. He moves both hands to her face, where he wipes the tears away with soothing sweeps of his thumbs. “Misplaced it, maybe, but not lost. We can have it all, Peggy. Right now. Together, just like we were meant to.”

“How?”

“Well, how about we start by getting married.”

Peggy’s mouth falls open as she stares at him in surprise. “What?”

“Marry me,” Steve says.

His eyes are impossibly blue, as clear and bright as Peggy remembers them, and her heart stutters painfully. Can this be true, she wonders; can she be here, on the edges of a life that she’d lost all hope of living seven decades ago? 

It doesn’t make sense and it should be impossible, but it must be true. She is here, thirty years old again and reunited with the love of her life, and in the end the rationale of it means nothing to her.

“Yes,” Peggy breathes. Steve’s expression lights up and the sight of it lifts Peggy’s heart, so she smiles and says it again, stronger. “Yes.”

Steve kisses her soundly; outside the windows, the first bold rays of daylight are peeking over the skyscrapers.

“Fossils are getting married,” Nat announces from her spot on the couch. She hasn’t moved and her eyes are still closed. “Pay up, suckers.”

Peggy doesn’t hear her, but Steve does - he flips her off without taking his attention off Peggy.

“That counts as a bad word,” Clint tells Steve nonchalantly as he and Tony hand Natasha the bet money. 

Steve flips him off too, but it’s only when Peggy reaches an arm out behind her and flips him off as well that Clint lets out a bark of laughter.

“I like her,” he says. “She’ll give you a run for your money, Cap.”

“You have no idea,” Peggy says, but it’s for Steve’s ears alone. 

Steve grins and kisses her again as the future dawns around them, bright and full of promise.


End file.
